RULES OF PROCEDURE

Kjelln announced that informal consultations on the rules of
procedure had been held earlier that morning and that agreement had
been reached on the rules in question: 9, 29 and 49.

Rule 9 was amended to read: "The Secretary-General of the United
Nations shall be the Secretary-General of the Committee. He, or his
representative, shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the
Committee and its subsidiary organs." Rule 29 was amended to
confirm that the rules of the Committee, with regard to
decision-making, would be based on the rules of the General
Assembly. The rule now reads: "Subject to rule 27, decisions of the
Committee and its subsidiary organs shall be taken in accordance
with the rules of procedure of the General Assembly and its
committees, respectively."

Rule 49 was adapted from the rules of procedure of the climate
change negotiations with regard to NGOs. The Committee decided,
however, that they also needed to have reference to decision 2/1 of
the UNCED PrepCom, which contains a detailed presentation of the
procedure for determining NGO competence and relevance to the work
of the Committee. The rule now reads: "Non-governmental
organizations invited to the Committee may make contributions to
the negotiating process, as appropriate, on the understanding that
these organizations shall not have any negotiating role during the
process, and taking into account, in particular, decisions 1/1 and
2/1 concerning the participation of non-governmental organizations
adopted by the Preparatory Committee for the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development at its first and second
sessions." Some countries were not prepared to adopt the rules of
procedure that morning, so Kjelln proposed that the Committee
consider the rules of procedure adopted ad referendum and
that final approval would take place the next day.